Healthcare Ministry acts to prevent Ebola entry to Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net - No cases of deadly Ebola virus have been reported in Armenia, with a number of preventive steps assigned to the institutions in charge, Healthcare Ministry press service reported.

The latters include raising the virus awareness through dissemination of information leaflets, special seminars for tour operators and medical workers, while the country’s medical institutions were instructed to take measures in early detection, isolation, treatment and prevention of the disease.

The Ministry of Agriculture was instructed to halt the import of wild animals, with sanitary and quarantine control to be boosted at the border, Armenia Today said.

Staff with the World Health Organisation battling an Ebola outbreak in West Africa see evidence the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimates the scale of the outbreak, the UN agency has said on its website.

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on August 13 at 1,069 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria.

The agency's apparent acknowledgement the situation is worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus.